


Wake Me Up (Cut Me Open)

by bewarethesmirk



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-12
Updated: 2012-11-12
Packaged: 2017-11-18 12:17:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/560995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewarethesmirk/pseuds/bewarethesmirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's inevitable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wake Me Up (Cut Me Open)

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd but please let me know if there are flagrant errors. Title shamelessly stolen from Stateless. A lot of content based on the promo for 4x6. I'm just having fun, not attempting to postulate on what's actually gonna happen. I gave up that battle long ago.

Predictably, since Elena became a vampire everything has been about blood. Ever since she killed the hunter - _Connor_ – all she has seen is blood. She sees KILLER smeared along the bathroom mirror. There are flashes where everything around her is nothing but blood. She almost loses her appetite for it. Almost.

Elena wakes next ( _had she been sleeping_?), and there's no blood in sight. What is in sight, however, is Damon lounging on the bed beside her. He's crossing his arms behind his head so that his black button-up pulls taut over his chest just-so. Elena starts to open her mouth, and then remembers the werewolf venom and her recent hallucinations, not to mention the current hallucinations.

"You're not here," Elena says, trying to make her voice firm so that her mind will believe her. She covers her eyes and wills everything to go away, including – _especially_ – Damon.

There's a firm pressure on her arm. When she looks up, Damon is still there, staring at her, clearly concerned. His palm is on her face, cold but steady. "It's me, Elena," he says. "It's me."

At this point, it really no longer matters if it's Damon or not. This—it's enough for her. Elena leans closer to Damon and against the firm steady pressure of him, she collapses. She buries her head against his chest, and he puts his arm around her.

"It's been terrible. I've been seeing – "

"I know," he says. "I know." He puts a finger to her lips. "Klaus told Stefan that there's consequences when you kill a hunter." Damon laughs roughly in amusement. "A _real_ hunter," he amends.

Elena shakes her head, trying to stop the dizziness and the blur of red. "What kind of – " She barely can get the words out through her parched throat, but Damon seems to understand.

"You get terrible hallucinations. It's some mojo that punishes the vampire who puts down a hunter." Damon's hands are in her hair, soothing, petting. She should stop him – should stop –

"Damon, stop." It's a feeble attempt, but at least Damon doesn't pretend to be stupid. He still holds her, but removes his hands from her hair. He does sigh with gusto, however, just to be a prick. 

"The hallucinations should stop with time."

"That's reassuring," Elena says, sarcastically.

"We just need to keep you safe until then," Damon says, pulling her closer.

"Don't get used to this," she says. "I'm not going to be weak for long."

"Good. I like you all snarling and badass."

Elena, despite herself, smiles and closes her eyes. This time, she sees black and sleeps.

*

She wakes, screaming, to a nightmare. All around her, the walls are covered in blood—the photos, the music posters, the lifeless remains of the humanity she's left behind. In front of her is Stefan.

"Stefan," she says, relieved and frightened.

"Elena," he says, and she knows immediately it's not him. His voice is vacant and monotone. "I'm surprised you're seeing me and not Damon, aren't you?"

"Shut up," she says, flinging the words at him. Though she knows it's _not_ Stefan, she can't stop herself from jumping off her bed and shouting. Great—insanity has arrived, and her name is Elena Gilbert.

"This has nothing to do with Damon," Elena says. 

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Stefan says, smirking. It's that Ripper Smirk. The one that gets under Elena's skin, the one that's more nightmare inducing than all the blood and all the hallucinations in the world. The Ripper is a reality, always simmering under the surface, and now not only does she fear it from Stefan, she fears it from herself.

"This has nothing to do with Damon," Elena repeats, tilting her chin up, ignoring the fact that she's wearing a tank top and shorts. "This has everything to with you lying, for knocking out Damon and leaving us alone, like I'm some damsel in distress."

"I wanted to protect you!" Stefan shouts, hands grasping at the air, as if he can mold it into comprehension.

"I don't need protecting," Elena says, grips Stefan's shoulders, shocked to find that _she can touch him_. She plunges on, too confused, too angry to stop. "I need to know why. Why you had some plan with Klaus that was so important you lied to me."

Stefan buries his face in his hands, his shoulders weighed down by some burden. Elena moves forward and takes his hands in hers. " _What_?" she asks. "What are you not telling me?"

"There was a cure," Stefan says, all in one breath.

Elena's eyes narrow. She can't grasp his meaning. "A cure?" she repeats.

"For vampirism." Stefan takes a step toward her and begins to explain.

By the time he is done, Elena finds herself weeping in the shower with no Stefan, real or imagined, in sight.

*

Unmarked time speeds and stalls, speeds and stalls. Elena is left in the lurch. Stefan and Damon appear before her, separately and together, vying for her affection. Connor's spine crunches beneath the newborn power of her hands, and then Matt's and then Jeremy's.

Elena comes to in the shower. She's on her knees, skin wrinkled and the water ice cold. She's huddling in foetal position underneath the spray. 

Her living—or is it dead--moments become a kaleidoscope of blood and memories. Years of lust for the wrong brother mixed with adoration for the right brother, mixed with nearly killing Matt and topped off with the death of so many she's held dear. It's all her fault – all her fault –

Elena closes her eyes and hopes to die.

"It's nice to see you again, Elena." 

It's perhaps the last person on earth Elena wants to see. When she opens her eyes, there's Katherine.

"Katherine?" 

"No, Elena, it's me."

Bonnie. Just Bonnie. And then Elena sees blood, imagines the power coursing through Bonnie's veins, sinking her fangs into the tender skin of her long neck and _sucking_ \--

"Leave me alone!" Elena yells, and wakes again. Alone.

*

The next morning (or the next or the day after that) Elena wakes and feels well enough to stumble downstairs and find the bottle of Jim Beam that Damon gave to her. She's fucking hungry, but she doesn't trust herself to leave the house.

Elena is knocking back a few fingers of liquid courage when Katherine appears before her. "I think it's time we had a little chat," she says, all business and no courtesies. At least there's no pretension.

"—Did you miss me?"

Or maybe not.

Elena bares her teeth. "This is not a good time to fuck with me," Elena says.

"Ooh," Katherine croons, setting Elena's teeth on edge and reaching for a glass to pour herself some of Elena's liquor, the bitch. "Vampirism suits you."

"I'm so glad," Elena says, rolling her eyes. "What the hell do you want?"

Katherine doesn't answer; she takes her time leisurely strolling the kitchen, boots clicking against the floor. When she looks up, her head's at the perfect angle, tilted in a way that reminds Elena eerily of Damon. Isn't that disturbing. 

"I've been watching you for a while."

"A stalker." Elena snorts, pouring another glass. "What I've always wanted."

"I've seen you and Damon," Katherine says, creeps closer. "I've seen him with his hands all over you." Elena flushes, unable to stop herself. Katherine stops against her back, and Elena feels her breasts pressed firm to her. "You want it, don't you? You hunger for it. His fangs in your neck, his cock—"

Elena throws her glass toward Katherine, and it flies through her and hits the wall.

*

Elena wakes to find Damon hovering over her.

"We need to bring you some sort of closure," he says, and pulls her by the hand out the door. Next she knows, they're speeding away in his car and going to the last place on earth Elena wants to see. Wickery Bridge. 

"What good is this going to do?" Elena demands, arms crossed.

"Just trust me." 

When they get there, Damon helps her from the car, and they stand next to the bridge, looking at the rocks and rapids below. Elena watches her death in the blue-black water. She becomes hypnotized by it; she leans forward, and against Damon's yelling, she jumps over, falls, drowns.

*

Her world stays dark for what feels like forever. When she finally opens her eyes, it's to blinding light. She's in her bed in a tank top and shorts again. In one corner of the room, there's Damon, and in the other, Stefan.

Elena feels like she's being pulled apart.

"You have to decide, Elena," Stefan says.

"I already did. I chose you." Elena closes her eyes against the blood on the walls now reading WHORE, MANIPULATOR and KATHERINE.

"But you crave him," Stefan says.

"I—I'm attracted to him. I care about him," Elena says, without her consent, the words falling off her tongue. "But Stefan—we're forever."

She doesn't look at Damon's face as they both fade away, and she feels like she's ripping out her own heart. Again.

*

The last time Elena wakes up, Damon is beside her. He's standing next to the bed holding out a mug.

"Blood?" 

"Tea," Damon says. Elena takes it and is pleasantly surprised at how comforting it is to hold the warm mug in her hands, to feel the steam wafting in her face. She sips and is surprised at how comforting the honey is against her tongue.

"How did you--?"

"I know a lot about you, Elena," Damon says, sitting next to her. "I know that you want to unleash yourself, that you want to _feel_."

Elena stares at him, at his perfect face, devious and handsome—the traces of wrinkles at his eyes, the curl of his smile.

"You're like me," he says. "Whether you want to admit it or not."

"I know," Elena says, at last. "I know." Elena—the human—is clawing inside, saying, _No, no, no_ , but Elena the vampire is saying something else entirely. Elena wonders where the human and vampire begin and end. Elena remembers the memory of her and Damon's first meeting. How gorgeous he was, and how she never remembered. Elena is not merely a vampire nor a human—the pasts are intermingled.

"That's it," Damon says, softly, and bends down to kiss her. She turns so that he catches her cheek.

"Time," she says.

Even as a vampire, Elena is still Elena and above all else, she craves time.

Damon smiles, a little wicked this time. "It's inevitable, you know," he says, cupping her chin.

She doesn't answer. There's no blood on the walls, no screams, no Katherine and no Stefan. There's only Damon and his hands and his face and his words: "I promise."


End file.
